


New Math

by brinnanza



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2757242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard is so tired--yeah, because he’s been up all night, and it seems like being around McKay is the only thing that will chase away the faces of kids Sheppard couldn’t save, but also because what’s the point of surviving all these insurmountable odds if everything just stays the same?</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Math

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Nova Matemática](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6939865) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



> Based on a Tumblr headcanon post [here](http://1989nihil.tumblr.com/post/104007076820/aggpo-headcanon-late-at-night-when-hes-on): _late at night when he’s on patrol or just can’t sleep, John likes to wander into Rodney’s lab and correct his math._ It sort of grew from there.

He’s been lying there forever, it feels like, even though it’s probably only been a few hours, judging by the glimpses Sheppard occasionally gets when the moonlight hits his watch just right. He’s tried opening the window and closing it, counting sheep, counting backwards, deep breathing, and around three a.m., he even tries some of the meditation the Teer and Teyla had tried to teach him. Nothing helps, and he’s still awake.

They had to send another coffin through the Gate today, and Sheppard can’t get the kid’s face out of his mind.

He wasn’t even there when Jacobs died. He’d been along with AR-6 on a routine trade mission when there was a rock slide and a head injury, and not everyone made it back to the Gate in one piece. Sheppard is usually pretty good at compartmentalizing--he is, after all, the one signing the “regret to inform you” letters. Every death is a tragedy, but if every death in a dangerous place like Pegasus kept him up at night, he’d never get any sleep.

They all still give him nightmares, but he gets enough sleep. Not a lot, but enough.

There’s something about this one. Sheppard thinks maybe he reminds him of Holland. He’s got--he had--the same nose, the same goofy grin. And that’s a face Sheppard will never forget, not as long as he lives.

He turns to his other side, punches the pillow, and kicks at the sheet. It’s no use. The same morose thoughts keep swirling through his brain, and reminders of one’s own mortality and responsibilities have never been conducive to a good night’s sleep.

It’s such a useless waste of life, he thinks. An accident. Here’s Sheppard pushing the wrong side of 40, still going against impossible odds, and another kid’s in the ground, practically before he can drink a beer.

They try not to send guys with families to Pegasus these days. The IOA and the American military learned their lesson after so many grieving widows and children had to have closed casket funerals, Sheppard guesses. But everyone’s got someone, and Sheppard recalls Jacobs talking about his high school sweetheart and the ring he was going to buy her. Like the kid’s parents outliving their son isn’t tragic enough.

Sheppard throws off the blanket and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Maybe getting out of this tiny room for a little while will help clear his head. He remembers reading somewhere that getting up and doing something is supposed to help with insomnia; staying put and staring at the ceiling certainly isn’t doing him any good. He could go down to the mess and heat up a glass of whatever’s passing for milk these days. Or he could stick with his old standby and go for a run around the city, pushing himself until the only things left are the pounding of blood in his ears and the burn of lactic acid.

After a brief moment of consideration, he snags his radio from the bedside table and tucks it into the pocket of his sweats (why did so many emergencies occur in the middle of night?). He ignores his shoes and pads out into the hallway barefoot.

It’s quiet, save for the lapping of the ocean against the city, audible through an open window at the end of the hall. The only people awake at this hour is the security patrol making their rounds and the night shift on duty in the Gate room, probably yawning into their laptop screens and knocking back cups of stale coffee. Maybe Sheppard will head up that way and offer to relieve someone since he’ll probably be up all night anyway.

Instead, he finds himself in front of the science labs. They’re deserted at this hour, even of McKay, whom Sheppard dragged away from his simulations and sent to bed hours ago amid a flurry of complaints, appeals, and threats. It’s dark, but Atlantis obligingly brings up the lights to a soft glow when he enters.

There’s a sprawling math proof scrawled across three dry erase boards. It’s in McKay’s handwriting and his favorite blue marker, but there’s a decimal point in the wrong place, and of course Doctor McKay, Phd, Phd, would never make such an obvious mistake. Sheppard smirks as he erases the offending dot with his thumb and inks in a new one in green.

Sheppard steps back and leans against a lab table so he can look at the whole proof. He finds two more misplaced decimal points and a factorial error, which he also corrects in green. McKay will probably assume Zelenka made the corrections, as he usually does when he finds his math is different from how he left it. Sheppard suspects McKay might have some minions that are almost as smart as he is, but they’ll never get any credit for it. McKay discounts Zelenka’s opinions all the time, and Sheppard knows for a fact that McKay does respect the man, despite what his behavior would indicate. 

Sheppard is just considering changing something that’s not wrong just for the hell of it when he hears the door whoosh open.

“So _you’ve_ been correcting my math,” says McKay accusingly, gesturing with his coffee mug. He’s wearing a faded t-shirt with the classic Doctor Who logo on it and a pair of striped pajama pants, and his hair is sticking up every which way. Mussed and a little sleepy is a good look on Rodney.

Sheppard just shrugs. He guesses he does end up here fairly often, usual during a routine night patrol or if he can’t sleep sometimes. It’s not like Rodney’s math has errors _frequently_ , but it’s safe to say that several of his breakthroughs are the result of missing or assumed steps spelled out in a different color.

McKay takes a sip of his coffee and joins Sheppard at the lab table. They stand companionably for a few moments, and then Sheppard says, “Really, Rodney, a factorial?”

McKay rolls his eyes. “I knew what I mean,” he says, and bumps Sheppard with his shoulder.

Sheppard realizes he hasn’t thought of Jacobs once since arriving at the labs. He feels a prickle of guilt in the same breath as a wave of exhausted relief. He yawns and steals McKay’s coffee. McKay glares at him but doesn’t say anything, and compared to what he’s capable of, it’s a pretty weak glare.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” asks Sheppard after several more moments of quiet math checking. He distinctly recalls threatening to cut McKay’s discretionary project funding if he didn’t get some sleep. (He has no control over McKay’s budget, but he does advise the people that do, and it’s fun to watch McKay splutter.)

“Shouldn’t you?” McKay counters. He takes his coffee back and drains it.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sheppard admits. He doesn’t mention Jacobs, who is back on his mind, but quietly now and at the back. He thinks he probably could sleep now, but he’s not sure he wants to.

McKay shifts restlessly beside him for a minute, then says uncomfortably, “Sheppard, that marine--there was nothing you could have done, even if you’d been there. It was just… an accident.”

McKay always picks the most inconvenient times to be emotionally aware regardless of how well Sheppard thinks he’s hiding it. “Yeah, I know,” he says. And he does--it’s the only thing that gets him through the brief service they hold when they send the body through to Earth. Especially when there are so many he could have saved.

He thinks of Ford. All the marines they lose remind him of Ford, at least a little. He tries not to let it affect him too much. There’s always another eager kid, so Sheppard just pushes it all down. He sometimes briefly considers what it might have been like to let Heightmeyer shrink him--she’d have had a field day. Elizabeth had sometimes given him those concerned looks of hers, gentle suggestions that he talk to “someone”. So much had happened since they’d lost Elizabeth, and he could only imagine the kind of looks she’d give him now. The word “haunted” comes to mind. But it’s too late for that anyway--two more tragedies he should have prevented.

Most of the time, he’s glad there’s no one privy to the mess in his head. He’d had so many fights with Nancy over his inability to let anyone in, and he’s grateful no one will pry.

McKay watches these thoughts pass through Sheppard’s mind, kept so carefully off of his face. Sheppard suspects he’s less than successful in that respect because McKay sets his coffee mug down on the table behind them, claps Sheppard on the shoulder and says, “You wanna come play chess? Maybe I’ll get a brilliant breakthrough on this problem.”

“Sure,” says Sheppard, and he follows McKay out of the lab. The lights click off behind them.

 

McKay sets up the chessboard in the middle of the bed. Sheppard sits up against the headboard, and McKay paces back and forth at the foot of the bed between moves. They don’t really talk, and Sheppard falls asleep six moves away from checkmate.

 

He comes awake with a start when he feels the mattress shift. McKay’s packing away the chess pieces, though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Sheppard checks his watch--it’s been almost an hour.

McKay notices the movement and glances over at Sheppard. “I would have won, you know. Seven moves.”

“Six,” says Sheppard around a yawn. He shoves a hand through his hair and pushes himself up from the bed.

McKay stops and studies the remaining chess pieces. He sniffs in disbelief. “No way.”

“Whatever you say, McKay.” Sheppard knocks over McKay’s king with a finger. He’s about to head back to his own quarters to try and grab a few hours sleep before the morning senior staff meeting--Woolsey has taken to scheduling them practically every other day--but something in McKay’s expression makes him pause. “What?”

McKay opens his mouth, then closes it again. He hesitates, turns back to the chess pieces, busies himself with putting them back in the box. Finally, he says, “You could, you know, stay. If you wanted.”

Sheppard doesn’t respond right away, his face kept carefully impassive, so McKay continues, filling the silence with nervous babble. “It’s just--I’ve shared a tent with you enough times, and I’ve seen you sleeping--not that I’ve been watching you sleep, that would be weird--but I have seen you, and you’re never--you always…” He flaps his hands helplessly. “Anyway, just now, you just looked… I dunno, peaceful? I just thought maybe if it would help--Christ knows you need the sleep--you could maybe just… stay?”

McKay’s eyes are a little too wide, and there are fine lines around his crooked mouth. Sheppard thinks about making a joke to defuse this. McKay would go along with it, and they could laugh it off. Things might be a little weird in the morning, but they’d get past it just like they always did. 

“Rodney,” he says slowly.

“Look,” McKay interrupts. “I know you can’t, um, ask or tell me anything--not that there’s anything to tell,” he adds hurriedly as Sheppard’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “But it doesn’t have to mean anything. We’ve shared tighter quarters off-world.”

It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything, Sheppard thinks, but it will. It will mean this thing between them, all the flirting disguised as friendly banter and longing glances when they think no one is looking, will be real. Sheppard won’t be able to pretend he’s happy for McKay when he inevitably tries to marry the next hot blonde who can give him the boring picket fence life he thinks he wants.

For a long time, Sheppard thought it was just him feeling more than he should for his best friend--Rodney’s constant comments about Sam Carter’s rack hadn’t really provided any evidence to the contrary, and friendship was enough. But the way McKay had called his name when he thought he’d left in the middle of the night when he’d had that thing in his head is another thing Sheppard will never forget.

Sheppard’s not great with people, but he’s not an idiot. McKay could barely remember his own sister and the woman he’d professed his love for, but he never forgot Sheppard. He just figures he’s got plenty of good (and not-so-good) reasons to leave things alone. Neither of them has had a friendship like this before, and neither of them wants to screw it up. They’re both crap at relationships and they’ll still have to work together--neither of them is willing to give up Atlantis for anything. And there’s always the Uniform Codes if Sheppard ever suddenly felt like risking everything else and seeing where things led. 

McKay never seemed like he wanted things to change, so Sheppard let them stay the same. Except it seems like he does now, the way he’s ducked his head, looking up through his lashes with a wary hopefulness on his face. They are finally going to have this conversation, apparently.

Sheppard never really thought they’d get around to it. He always thought he’d go out with a (probably literal) bang, taking out a hive ship or something, feelings unconfessed. McKay would marry Katie or Keller or whoever it was at the time, and he would be fine.

(He tries not to think of the version of Rodney that spends 25 years trying to rescue him, throwing away his entire life and never knowing if it worked.)

He still thinks he should leave. They could pretend this never happened, and everything is exactly the same: frustrating and nigh impossible some days, but safe, for the most part.

But there’s another dead marine, someone Sheppard was supposed to protect. The two things don’t appear to be related, but they _are_ , and Sheppard is so tired--yeah, because he’s been up all night, and it seems like being around McKay is the only thing that will chase away the faces of kids Sheppard couldn’t save, but also because what’s the point of surviving all these insurmountable odds if everything just stays the same? Being self-sacrificing is exhausting, and Rodney is asking. For tonight, right now, Sheppard feels like being selfish, consequences be damned. Maybe he’ll regret it in the morning, maybe they both will, but what’s another regret to add to the pile?

So he says, “Yeah, okay,” and reaches out to pull McKay next to him on the bed.

McKay took the opportunity of their brief stay in the San Francisco Bay to obtain a proper, human-sized bed to replace the stock Ancient child-sized one, so when they lie beside each other, they’re close but not touching. Sheppard douses the lights with a mental command, and they remain still for several long moments, listening to each other breathe in the dark.

Then he hears McKay roll onto his side and start awkwardly, “Do you wanna…”

“No,” Sheppard cuts him off. Maybe they’ll talk about it tomorrow or maybe never. He rolls over onto his side and meets McKay’s eyes in the dim light from the moon outside the window.

“It’s just sleeping,” McKay says softly. Sheppard thinks maybe he’s gotten a little carried away, maybe it doesn’t have to mean anything, maybe tomorrow they’ll go back to the same feigned ignorance and listening to McKay talk about the ass on the new geologist.

He studies McKay’s face, wide-eyed and apprehensive, but giving him the out all the same.

“No it isn’t,” says Sheppard, and he watches McKay’s face collapse in relief.

Then McKay smirks and says, “So do you wanna…?” He attempts an eyebrow waggle.

Sheppard can’t help but laugh, and he reaches over to cuff McKay on the shoulder. “It’s just sleeping right _now_.”

McKay yawns, and Sheppard catches it, and they both lie back to face the ceiling, close enough now that their shoulders are touching. Sheppard’s grin has softened into a pleased smile, and he turns his hand over and laces his fingers with McKay’s.

They sleep.


End file.
